Image: Mike Vanden Bosch / Pattison Media / Chilliwack RCMP respond to a shooting on Windsor Street in this file photo. New data released by Statistics Canada Thursday (July 25) indicates Chilliwack had the third-highest crime rate of any census metropolitan area in Canada last year.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Criminal activity

Chilliwack had the 3rd highest crime rate in Canada in 2023: Statistics Canada

Jul 25, 2024 | 8:33 PM

CHILLIWACK — New data released by Statistics Canada Thursday (July 25) indicates Chilliwack had the third-highest crime rate of any census metropolitan area in Canada last year.

According to data from Statistics Canada, police reported 11,615 incidents per 100,000 residents in Chilliwack, the third-highest in Canada behind Kamloops (13,116 crimes per 100,000 population) and Red Deer, Alberta (12,765 per 100,000).

The average crime rate for the country as a whole was 5,843 per 100,000 people in 2023.

Stats Canada says the crime rate increased 17 per cent in Chilliwack in 2023 year over year, one of the highest statistical increases in Canada.

By comparison, the crime rate increased 15 per cent in Toronto in 2023 year over year. Closer to home, the crime rate increased 15 per cent in the Abbotsford-Mission census metropolitan area in 2023 compared to 2022.

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Stats Canada’s Crime Severity Index — which assigns weights to crime categories based on lengths of court sentences — shows Chilliwack with a figure of 156.2 in 2023, a 24 per cent increase over 2022. That was second in the nation behind only Kamloops (165.3).